INDIANAPOLIS. The rivalry between the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts has faded this year, with the Colts below .500 and the Patriots without MVP quarterback Tom Brady, but that hasn't dimmed the enthusiasm of long-time Colts fans Jim Hampe and Ed Davis as they make plans for Sunday's match-up. "We've got our tickets and we're flying into Boston Saturday," Hampe says with a big grin.
At the Barking Quahog
But, this reporter asks, if the game is at Lucas Oil Stadium, why are you leaving Indianapolis?
Lucas Oil Stadium: "Anybody seen Jim and Ed?"
"That would be the easy way out," says Davis, who was a roving "monster man" linebacker in high school. "Coach always told me when an O-lineman pushes you one way, you got to go the other."
Hampe and Davis are members of a new breed of "extreme" fans who disdain the home field advantage when they root for their favorite NFL team and travel to the opposing team's town to take their licks in a local sports bar. "Look at it this way," says Bob McGough of Swansea, Mass., a regular at the Barking Quahog, a rough establishment on the Boston waterfront where the out-of-towners plan to watch the game. "If you're climbing mountains, do you go to the bunny hills for beginners, or to the Himalayas?"
Outhouse of the Blues: Rams fans only, please.
Last week McGough and his friend Sherman Winslow travelled to St. Louis as the Patriots played the Rams at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Mass. They settled onto bar stools at The Outhouse of Blues, a run-down barbecue joint in the shadow of the Gateway Arch, wearing Patriots throw-back jerseys, and proceeded to trash the Rams, including running back Steven Jackson.
Steven Jackson
"Aw, does Stevie have a boo-boo?" Winslow began as an announcer reported that Jackson would not play because of a quadriceps injury.
"Yeah--maybe he should play for NFL Europe," McGough adds. "I hear it's two-hand-touch-below-the-waist over there."
Patrons leave seats to join in the pounding.
A few curious looks are cast in the direction of the two New Englanders, and then Duane Smoltz, a 6'4" ironworker, comes over to express his displeasure. "You guys must be lost," he begins. "Hmm--lost--like 'just lost a Super Bowl'."
McGough takes the ribbing in stride. "Yeah, you'd know something about that," he says with a chuckle. "Having lost to the Patriots IN THE BIGGEST UPSET IN PRO FOOTBALL HISTORY!"
Smoltz lunges at McGough, and a phalanx of fellow Rams fans joins in the fray, pounding the two Patriots' rooters before Mel Johnson, Jr., the proprietor, intercedes.
"You guys need to go to a hotel downtown where you can watch the game and live to tell your children about it," he says.
The two New Englanders pick themselves up, and McGough takes out his wallet to settle up for their two Bud Lights and barbecue rib platters.
"No--just go on and git out of here," Johnson says. "We don't want your kind around here."
"Fine--go on and be that way," Winslow says with a huffy tone as he and his pal walk out into the sunlight.
The battered duo dust themselves off, and size up their situation. "That was great," McGough says.
"Yeah," Winslow agrees. "I can hardly wait for the Miami game. I'm hungry for some free seafood."
KING CITY, Mo. In this small town in northwestern Missouri, breeding animals is a way of life. "My daddy bred jackalopes," says Ernest "Woody" Fredrick, referring to the cross between a jackrabbit and an antelope that is rarely seen outside of the Midwest. "But what Wehrli Farms is doing is something new."
Roger Wehrli
Fredrick is referring to an experiment currently being conducted by Roger Wehrli, a Hall of Fame defensive back for the University of Missouri Tigers and the NFL's Cardinals when they played in St. Louis, and one of the last, great white cornerbacks. "He may fail," says Oren Daily, Jr., a professor of animal husbandry at the University of Missouri's Rolla campus. "But when an animal faces extinction, you've got to do something."
Wehrli Farms
Cornerbacks breed without difficulty in nature, often producing children by cheerleaders and other exotic species. "In captivity, it's a different story," says Daily. "They get all skittish if they can't roam from one bar to another, or at least nibble on a sideline reporter during a game."
4H Club: "Next year I'm gonna raise me a cornerback with a quick first step to the ball."
So the prospects for success are not great, but the Wehrlis, in cooperation with the Missouri Department of Agriculture's Extension Service, have brought three white high school cornerbacks to their farm for breeding purposes, mating them to leggy young girls provided by the John Alston Modeling Agency of Kansas City.
"These are the same girls you see modeling fashion undergarments in regional newspapers," Daily says. "They've been chosen for their low body fat, and their willingness to slap you silly if you try to run a crossing route through their push-up bras."
Jason Sehorn
The last white cornerback in the NFL was Jason Sehorn, who played for the New York Giants before a knee injury ended his career. Sehorn has only one son, and environmentalists have become concerned that "The Species"--as Sehorn was known during his playing days--may die out if breeding in captivity fails.
"There is a 15-yard penalty on the offense for excessive celebration."
"Perhaps we've been focusing too much on baby seals and whales," concedes Evan Winslow of the Sierra Club. "I've never seen a whale master the Cover 2 defense."
CINCINNATI, Ohio. New England Patriots' head coach Bill Belichick, known for his obsessive preparation for games, could be excused if he looked a little bit tired at Paul Brown Stadium here last night following his team's 34-13 dismantling of the Cincinnati Bengals.
"We've had a tough week watching a lot game film, but it paid off in a big way," was all that Belichick would say to a sideline reporter as he walked off the field.
At his post-game news conference a sportswriter asked Belichick, widely regarded as a defensive genius, whether he had found the Bengals' Achilles' heel in stifling their explosive offense. The usually reticent Patriots' coach dropped his guard and admitted that he had detected the flaw in Cincinnati's game.
"We watched hundreds of hours of film, often at slow motion, and discovered that their uniforms are ugly--I mean really ugly," he said, as reporters dutifully transcribed the words that would spark cries of foul from the Bengals' locker room.
"I've finally found a colorist I'm comfortable with."
"I don't know where he gets off saying something inflammatory like that," said Cincinnati's Chad Johnson, a wide receiver known for his pre-and-in game trash-talking who exacerbates the Bengals' loud orange and black color scheme with a tasteful, bleached-blond mohawk. "I try to be respectful of my opponent at all times and keep my thoughts to myself unless I have to point out that his shoe is untied or that his mother looks for love in horse barns."
"Them damn kids said I looked like an NFL coach . . . "
Belichick has himself been criticized for his taste in sideline apparel, as his signature grey "hoodsie" sweatshirt has been likened to a homeless man's winter wardrobe. "I find that really offensive," said Ellen Stritch, executive director of Cincinnati's Evening Outreach Shelter, which provides beds and meals to an average of 120 homeless men each night. "Every day I see men who have been neglected and forgotten by our society, and I rarely encounter one who looks as bad as Belichick."
The Bengals' uniforms have been described as what a Mighty Morphin Power Ranger wears on Halloween, but Kimberly, the Pink Power Ranger who hails from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, took issue with that comparison.
"Kids, if anyone offers you one of the grey tabs, don't take it!"
"It's more like what Tony the Tiger would wear if somebody sprinkled LSD on his Frosted Flakes."
NEW YORK. Responding to a claim by Philadelphia Eagles' quarterback Donovan McNabb that black quarterbacks face more pressure and criticism than their white counterparts, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell agreed to provide reparations to teams with an African-American signal-caller, beginning with tonight's Eagles-New York Giants contest.
McNabb: "Fourth and less than a yard--I'll take those reparations now!"
"This has the potential to be a real public relations disaster," said NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. "I say let's cave and put it behind us."
Forty acres and a mule.
Under the proposal, modelled after the aborted "40 acres and a mule" program of post-Civil War reparations ordered by Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, each starting quarterback of African-American descent would receive 40 yards and a Cadillac Escalade, to be used as he sees fit.
Escalade: 400 horsepower, 600 mulepower.
"This is going to change the balance of power in both conferences," says Art Reed, a columnist for Pro Football Insider. "You probably want to have a black on the roster as emergency quarterback just for short yardage situations."
Brown: "Please, please--throw long on second and short, you got extra yards for third down!"
McNabb made his comments in an interview on HBO Tuesday night with James Brown, who died last year at the age of 73. Brown goes by a variety of nicknames, including Godfather of Soul, Soul Brother Number One, The Hardest Working Man in Show Business and Minister of the New Super Heavy Funk.
Tarvaris Jackson
The Civil War reparations program was never put into effect, and some black quarterbacks were skeptical that they would ever benefit from the NFL's proposed plan. "Yeah, Donovan, he's got the soup commercials, sure they're gonna give him a Caddy," said Minnesota Vikings quarterback Tarvaris Jackson. "Me--I'm in the whitest state in the country. I'll probably get a freaking Volvo."
EAST RUTHERFORD, New Jersey. Jeff Feagles, veteran place kick holder for the New York Giants, stormed out of the team's dressing room today after accusing reporters of ignoring his contributions to the franchise's incredible 9-10 record over the past two seasons.
Feagles: "How long must I labor in obscurity?"
"You guys have written a book about everybody on this team from Eli Manning to Christine Procops," the Giants' chief financial officer. "What do I have to do to get a little ink around here--become a CPA?"
Crunch Time: A Season Running the Numbers for the New York Giants, $24.95.
Feagles' frustration boiled over after reading a story in Sunday's New York Times that listed eight books published about the Giants this fall, a statistic that other teams around the league cited as evidence of east coast bias by national media outlets headquartered in New York. "We won the Super Bowl last year and there were only three books published about us," complained Rod Zucker, Vice President of Marketing for the Indianapolis Colts. "The New York media is like a drunk who loses his car keys and only looks under the street lamp because that's where the light's best."
Steelers license plate holder
Other teams joined the chorus of complaint. "There were no books published about the Steelers after we won Super Bowl XL," notes Pittsburgh Communications Coordinator Dave Lockett. "We got a license plate holder."
New York publishers denied the accusation, saying they commission books based on anticipated demand and are not prejudiced against other regions of the country. "I asked several people I know, and they all said they'd be more likely to buy a book about the Giants than the Tampa Bay Orioles," sniffed Armand de Borchgrave, a third-generation editor at Farr, Wilkinson & Sanford, which will publish a cookbook of tailgating recipes by Giants' fans for the holiday book market.
Saul Steinberg's famous New Yorker cover: Does the rest of America really matter?
New Yorkers are notorious for their condescending attitude towards the rest of America, as memorably portrayed by Saul Steinberg, the cover artist for The New Yorker magazine whose map depicting Manhattan looming as large as the rest of the country became an instant classic. "After the Steelers won the Super Bowl in 2006 we commissioned David Halberstam to write a book about Giants' fans reactions to the game," de Borchgrave recalls as he wipes a tear from his eye. "He had only written about 760 pages when he died this year."
Halberstam: "For a Steelers fan, perhaps the most important consideration is what a New York writer will say about his beloved team if the Giants do not make the playoffs."
The NFL's licensing office said they would work with New York publishers to introduce them to markets beyond the Tri-State area in the unlikely event that the Giants' dynasty comes to an end in the near future. "We need to educate them," said Phil Burns. "People in Indiana will read something longer than a throw pillow if you give them the chance."
FOXBORO, Mass. As the NFL levied multiple fines on the New England Patriots and their head coach Bill Belichick for filming the New York Jets' defensive signals last Sunday, insiders say the league has ignored evidence of cheating by the three-time Super Bowl winner for years.
Wesleyan University
"You know how he cuts the sleeves off his sweatshirts?" asked retired Rams' scout Mark Mortensen. "He started that when he was in college at Wesleyan. He'd write exam answers on the inside of his sleeves, roll them up during the test then cut them off afterwards to destroy the evidence."
The "sleeveless" sweatshirt.
As proof, Mortensen produces a Wesleyan sweatshirt with the numbers 1066, 1215, 1776 and 1941. "The first three are easy," he notes. "Battle of Hastings, Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence. The fourth is the tipoff that this is legit." How so, a reporter asks. "1941 was the year Don Faurot invented the split-T formation at Missouri."
Don Faurot: Inventor of the split-T formation.
Others who have known Belichick have come forward to corroborate the allegations made by Jets' coach Eric Magnini. "I played squash against him at Wesleyan," says Carter Wirtz, an investment banker in New York. "We were tied at 13 all when he nicked the tin on a reverse three-wall boast. I've never forgotten how brazenly he denied it."
"Practice hike--hike!"
Several of Belichick's boyhood playmates from Annapolis, Maryland say the man who is credited with bringing the "homeless" look to NFL sidelines was cutting corners before he hit puberty. "We were playing two-hand-touch-below-the-waist, three-Mississippi before you rush the passer, and Billy was always sacking me," says Ernie Weiss, now a local hardware dealer. "I finally figured out that he was abbreviating it to 'Miss.'"
ATLANTA, Georgia. Michael Vick may have thrown in the towel on federal dogfighting charges, but he's not going down without a fight on possible state charges, hiring "Seinfeld" lawyer Jackie Chiles to defend him.
"Michael, the charges against you are outrageous, salacious and bodacious!"
"My client is innocent of all charges," Chiles said on the steps of the Fulton County Superior Courthouse where he accompanied Vick, the Atlanta Falcons' quarterback, for his arraignment. "Those dogs were well-kept and well-fed, and they got Milk Bones for their daily bread," said the defense attorney who learned his trademark rhyming style by watching tapes of O.J. Simpson lawyer Johnnie Cochran.
Michael Vick
Chiles appeared in four episodes of Seinfeld, representing Cosmo Kramer in a spilled-coffee burn case and a claim against O. Henry candy bar heiress Sue Ellen Mischke for distracting him by walking the streets of Manhattan wearing only a bra, causing an automobile accident.
"You say those dogs barked at you in a racist manner? I think we got a case."
Chiles gave a hint of his legal strategy to reporters, suggesting that the full story of Vicks' dogs had not been reported by the press. "Those dogs were racist," he asserted. "They would bark at a black man but not at white people. You know why? 'Cause white people got that wet dog smell."
Georgia NAACP President Edward Dubose: "Cochran's dead? Then let's get Jackie Chiles!"
Support for Vick has waned over the past week as lesser figures in the dog-fighting case have turned against him in exchange for plea bargains. Georgia NAACP President Edward Dubose has backed away from his early call for restraint, saying "Vick's a nitwit, and you must not acquit!"
BECKET, Mass. This town in the bucolic Berkshire Mountains is home to Jacob's Pillow, a dance complex whose signature attraction is a summer ballet festival that has endured now for seventy-five years.
Jacob's Pillow
"It hasn't been easy," admits Director of Development Marci Stephens. "We run a deficit most years, and the trustees end up having to write us big checks."
Walk Like an Egyptian, a piece for three dancers in hieroglyphics.
The tension between producing the finest in the performing arts and getting by on a shoestring budget has caused the balletomanes to rethink their strategic vision. "In the long run, we simply can't survive without attracting more straight males," Stephens says. "We've got to get them to get up out of their Barcaloungers, turn off the Fishing Channel, and come out and spend some money."
New England Patriots game: A lot like ballet, only with concussions.
With that mandate, Stephens has turned to Andy Brandnewjetski, a New England Patriots fan from nearby Chicopee, Mass., for tips on how to bring in free-spending sports nuts to watch women in tutus and skinny guys in tights. "When you think about it, football is a lot like ballet, only with concussions," he says. "You got to get into the mind of a man who will spend three and a half hours on his couch drinking beer and eating cheese curls."
"Bal-let--bal-let--bal-let!"
His first suggestion? "Brewskis and Ballet," he says proudly, a Friday night promotion that offers $5 pitchers of Bud or Bud Light beer, a "Wet Leotard" contest and a silk-screened "I Stayed Awake Through Most of Swan Lake" t-shirt. "You need to have a giveaway," says Brandnewjetski. "It makes people think they got something besides the beer they #### away as soon as they drink it."
Mikhail Gogua: Working on his vertical leap.
But Brandnewjetski's influence goes beyond food service. "I want to transform the way guys look at ballet," he says. "You need to get them interested in the off-season, and not wait until August when you're staring at bankruptcy if you get rained out a couple of days." His plan? "We're gonna add a scouting combine and a draft day," he says. "You'd be amazed at the vertical leap on some of these dancers, and the girls can hold their own with the guys."
Ballet scouting combine: "I want to see a jete derriere, then run a buttonhook pattern."
The bottom line may ultimately depend on outside income, however, as few arts organizations break even on ticket sales alone. "I'm thinking of maybe a tie-in with the Ford F-150 pickup," a guy's product if there ever was one, Brandnewjetski says. "Maybe we'll do a $20.07 cash-back offer if you buy two ballet tickets and take retail delivery from dealer stock by the kickoff of the regular season."
WELLESLEY HILLS, Mass. This quiet suburb of Boston is home to the Maugus Club, one of the nation's few venues where badminton is played competitively, a source of pride to local residents. "People think of badminton as something you did in your backyard when you were a kid," says Douglas de Vere, a member. "But it's easily as rough as violent contact sports such as squash."
"Don't you ever touch my chew toy!"
Badminton traces its roots to ancient Greece but has struggled to gain acceptance in a marketplace crowded with less-dignified sports such as hot dog-eating and arena football. Still, aficionadoes thought the sport was on the verge of a breakthrough after the National Badminton League signed a two-year contract with ESPN14 to broadcast tape-delayed matches beginning this fall. That bright prospect is now on hold after revelations that top players may have sponsored after-hours cat fights in the club's basement bowling alley using animals hopped-up on performance-enhancing catnip.
All-Star Weekend Overhead Smash Contest
"It was a volatile mix that was bound to explode at some point," says Wellesley Chief of Police Ernie Colson. "You had young men with too much time on their hands between matches, and the code of the WASP"--white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants--"meant they couldn't blow their money on bling, so they spent it on their cats." Upper-class males in America are restricted by the by-laws of private clubs such as Yale's Skull and Bones from wearing any jewelry other than a wrist watch and a wedding band, although tie clasps are permitted between Labor Day and Christmas in some areas of New England.
"If Daddy sees my secret decoder ring, he'll kill me!"
Young badminton players, who can often make as much as $42 in an evening of play on side bets, thus found themselves without an outlet for their affluence until they began to satisfy their bloodlust with no-holds-barred matches between vicious felines such as "Okie", a mixed-breed refugee from an animal shelter, and "Rocco", a Sylvester look-alike who at the tender age of two years was already fighting and beating heavier cats twice his age.
In training.
"Your typical badminton player is an introvert off the court, which helps to explain why so many of them become ailurophiles," or cat-lovers, according to Power Badminton editor Milton Volpman. "These are guys who have trouble asking for a double-cup in Starbucks," he notes, "much less extra foam on their lattes."
The evidence.
As police removed catnip mice and other evidence from the club, this reporter approached Wilson Trammel, a top-ranked player, and asked whether reports that he was an ailurophile were true. "That's a damned lie," Trammel responded. "I never touched that kid."
WASHINGTON, D.C. The State Department today warned American summer vacationers to avoid Europe after rioting broke out in several cities following the announcement that NFL Europe, a developmental football league, would be shut down.
"Please save the Hamburg Sea Devils--they are all I have to live for!"
The league, composed of one Dutch and six German teams, had been losing $30 million a season, and commissioner Roger Goodell said it was time for the NFL to cut its losses.
Merkel: "I'm going to the mall--do you need anything?"
That explanation wasn't good enough for German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "The NFL says they lost $30 million but I don't believe it," she said as she climbed into her limousine to drive to das Einkaufszentrum das Frauenzimmer die Burokratie, or "shopping mall for female bureaucrats", to buy some mascara. "Did they check their other pair of pants? Did they look behind the sofa cushions?"
"I just spent 750 Euros on a Cologne Centurions throwback jersey, and now it is worthless!"
At the United Nations, German and Dutch representatives demanded reparations for fans who had purchased team gear in the mistaken belief that their favorite franchises would continue in existence, and a resolution condemning the U.S. for its role, if any, in the league's demise was said to be gaining support in the General Assembly. "For your convenience, we have a pre-printed form for this sort of thing," UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon told Frank Majoor, Dutch ambassador to the world body. "That makes blaming America for stuff quick and easy."
Ban Ki-Moon: Please use Form 1D-7, "Blame America First Resolution". Thank you.
Players will be re-assigned to the NFL teams who hold their contracts after a three-month debriefing and re-education period, a requirement that some league stars found onerous. "Damn, man," said running back Roger Robinson of the Frankfurt Galaxy. "I just learned how to spike the ball in German, and now I got to start all over."
Running back Roger Robinson: Luftfahrt! (Touchdown!)
There was some hope an international showdown could be averted, and administration sources said President Bush would send a note by diplomatic pouch to Chancellor Merkel to explain that in American English the word "football" refers to a game in which players may touch the ball with their hands, and not to the game known as "soccer" in the U.S., which is more popular in Europe.
"I don't want your damn Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders poster!"
"If that is the case, and they are truly sorry," Merkel said, "I will tell the Americans 'My bad'."
DETROIT, Michigan. In the wake of charges that their assistant coach Joe Cullen has engaged in bizarre behavior that includes driving in the nude, members of the Detroit Lion family have rallied around their embattled colleague.
“Joe has had problems with alcohol before,” said Lions president Matt Millen, “but there are plenty of rehab options available for that. There’s really no twelve-step program for driving around naked.”
Nude driving has been certified by the American Psychiatric Association as a mental disorder, and is referred to by clinical professionals as “transient frontal lobe subluxation”, which Lions trainer Jake Gaskins translates as “brain cramp”. Most Americans refer to the disorder as “Godiva Syndrome”, after the Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who rode a horse naked through the streets of Coventry, England at her husband’s request in exchange for his agreement to reduce taxes on his tenants.
In the absence of a recognized therapeutic technique to cure the disorder, Lions’ strength and conditioning staff have planned their own amateur treatment which they say will begin with a visit to a show by the Chippendales, a male strip-tease troupe, at a nightclub in an undisclosed Detroit suburb tonight. “We want Joe to understand there’s nothing pretty about the typical male body, and if there is, then there’s something seriously wrong with the guy,” said strength and conditioning coach Ben Anthony.
“Tomorrow we’ll take him to a body-building competition where the men get so slicked up it’ll make you sick,” Anthony said with a tone of disgust.
“Finally, on Sunday, we’ll deliver the knockout punch. A visit to the steam room at the Boll Family YMCA. If that doesn’t cure him,” trainer Gaskins said, “there’s no hope.”
Con Chapman is the author of "The Year of the Gerbil: How the Yankees Won (and the Red Sox Lost) the Greatest Pennant Race Ever," a history of the 1978 AL East pennant race, and "CannaCorn", a novel about minor league baseball to be published by Joshua Tree Publishing in 2009. He has written a number of plays, including "Number One Hockey Mom," "Please, Pope," and "What Mickey Belle Isle Told You," a trilogy about hockey (JAC Publishing). His articles and humor have appeared in newspapers and magazines including The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, and The Atlantic Monthly, among others.
